Posted by Infographics, as the name suggests- is information conveyed in the form of graphical images. No one wants to read boring black and white text heavy pages end to end. Probably not even you even though you may be an instructor yourself. But learning is inevitable. You may end up schooling and graduating to get into a job, thinking you can escape it. But boom! You can’t. And the training and development department ends up being disliked by employees for loading them with stuff to read and remember, with their already loaded schedules. This is avoidable to some extent.
By using infographics, you can convert incomprehensible pages into visually appealing images that still capture all or most of what you intend to teach. However, creating an infographic is not a random process. Rather, it employs a careful implementation of various steps so that the entire message is conveyed without diluting the information. Here is how you should go about it:
Table of Contents
Define your purpose
You must have a clear objective as to why you are going to create this infographic. Do you want your sales team to know the factors that affect customer loyalty? Or is it the latest trends in the stock market that you want to educate them about? Keep one solid idea per infographic to avoid confusing yourself and your audience.
Identify your audience
Knowing your audience from the very beginning will help you decide what level of information to put on your infographic. Are they top executives or management trainees? What is the level of background knowledge that they have about the topic? These are some of the questions that you must ask and seek clear answers to.
Work on your key message
This step requires you to further refine your purpose to reflect the main message that you want to convey. What is the one thing that you’d want your learners to take away from this infographic? Now you might be thinking of all the textual information you’d wish they would read; but the catch is- instead of making them read and re-read those text heavy pages without any real understanding, isn’t it better to give them one key message that they will retain and apply?
Present your data/findings
It is a good idea to support your message with relevant data like stats and figures. This will give your learners a holistic idea about the topic. While presenting these data/findings, you can use colorful icons or graphical figures to make them appealing to the eye and easily digestible to the mind.
Create your infographic
Now that you’re ready to go, just set about creating the infographic. It is good to use colours, but avoid using too many different colors- it will lead to a cluttered look. Instead, opt for a theme and follow it throughout your infographic from top to bottom. The text should also be legible (use readable fonts and colors, not fancy ones!)
The art of creating successful infographics like everything else, comes with practice, but now that you’re sort of ready- in for graphics, are you?